[shoegaze] (2018) Dorias Baracca - Dorias Baracca [FLAC,Tracks] {100.XY}

(2018) Dorias Baracca - Dorias Baracca

Review:
There’s many a pleasure to be had from Dorias Baracca‘s self-titled release, but the listen’s also bittersweet. The shoegaze outfit’s tenure abruptly ended on the very day the album was completed when its nineteen-year-old lead singer, guitarist, and main songwriter, Buster Svendsen, died from a lethal combination of alcohol and drugs on June 16, 2011, four years after the Denmark band’s formation. As a result, only now is the material being issued publicly, in this case by Jonas Munk‘s Azure Vista Records (Munk, whose involvement with the group in a production capacity began in 2009, co-produced, mixed, and mastered the release).
Though band members Svendsen, Aske Wolfhagen, Simon Skytthe, and Jeppe Nygaard were only in their teens at the time, Dorias Baracca had become something of a known quantity before the album’s creation, with the 2010 Handsome Melting Point EP, issued on the London label Club AC30, having received fulsome critical praise from the likes of Drowned in Sound. It’s easy to understand why: there’s shredding aplenty in the opener “Handsome Melting Point,” but there’s also swoon-worthy melodicism. Hushed verses and anthemic choruses alternate in classic pop manner, with the band’s guitar-fueled swarm proving more soothing than grating. As much as the sound’s rooted in shoegaze (dreampop, if you prefer), the pop dimension’s as strong, and the quieter episodes suggest one could even conceivably trace the band’s lineage back to The Byrds. Svendsen’s singing has much to recommend it, his soft, satiny voice somehow managing to retain clarity despite the massive swirl of the instrumental design with which it’s paired.
Luscious vocal harmonies, buzzsaw guitars, and pummeling drums dominate in a seven-song set delivered in a svelte thirty-seven-and-a-half-minute package. There’s no bloat, and the momentum never flags when the ballad-free set’s a non-stop, high-energy fever dream. Rich in swagger and vulnerability, it’s an album sure to appeal to fans of My Bloody Valentine, Smashing Pumpkins, Slowdive, and Lush, but also Nirvana, considering the melodic hooks that come through loud and clear and that no amount of axe-generated roar can conceal.

Tracklist:
01 - Handsome Melting Point.flac
02 - Dean & Dane.flac
03 - Fed.flac
04 - Shaky Dreams (You and Me Forever).flac
05 - Another Day (Without Shoes).flac
06 - Goodbye.flac
07 - Wake Me Up (With a Kiss).flac

Summary:
Country: Denmark
Genre: shoegaze


Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : ~ 992-1000 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits